Directed search, wages, and non-wage amenities evidence from an online job board

Escudero, Verónica,, Liepmann, Hannah, and Vergara, Damián,

ILO Working Papers from International Labour Organization

Abstract: We leverage rich data from a prominent online job board in Uruguay to assess directed search patterns in job applications, focusing on posted wages and advertised non-wage amenities. We find robust evidence of directed search based on posted wages in the cross-section, with stark heterogeneity by occupation: the wage-application correlation is driven by vacancies attached to lower-skill occupations, with applications to vacancies attached to higher-skill occupations showing no responsiveness to posted wages. By applying text analysis to the job ads, we elicit advertised non-wage amenities and find evidence of directed search based on non-wage amenities. Applications to vacancies attached to lower-skill occupations are consistent with lexicographic application preferences: amenities predict applications to these vacancies only when wages are not posted. Finally, we exploit industry-by-occupation minimum wage variation to demonstrate that the observed occupational heterogeneity in directed search patterns is supported by quasi-experimental difference-in- differences estimates of the impact of wages on job applications.

Keywords: job vacancy; wages; fringe benefit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 1 online resource (96 p.) pages
Date: 2025
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Published in ILO working paper series

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ilo:ilowps:995614887502676

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